Tag Archives: black people

I had another dream, which showed the importance of what I refer to as a black river of apostles and prophets flowing out of America’s inner cities to the other regions of our nation. I wrote it as a short story rather than as a prophetic dream:

If I had not been there, I would not have believed what happened. Not in a million years.

That particular Saturday morning was Farmer City’s annual Sidewalk Sales Extravaganza. Crowds of people filled the streets of the downtown business district. All checked out the bargains lining the tables in front of the retail stores. Brown jersey gloves were three pair for a dollar at Hesston’s Hardware. Dollar General sold Handi-Wipes for seventy-nine cents. Nineteen hundred tight-fisted Norwegian and German-American people populated the city, but these blond-haired, blue-eyed conservatives liked nothing better than saving a dollar or two.

My little concession trailer sat on the street in front of the courthouse. Popcorn, snow cones, and cotton candy were hot items for the first two hours, but sales slacked off around 11:30 a.m.

I took a break and stood outside the trailer, smoking a cigarette when I saw the stranger heading toward me. If ever a person was in the wrong place, it was that man, an African-American in Farmer City. His pockmarked face was covered with four-day stubble. A jagged scar stretched from the base of his neck to his left ear. He wore a black Oakland Raiders’ sweatshirt rolled up to his elbows, revealing gang tattoos on his bulging forearms. His thousand-yard stare had the look of an ex-con.

He nodded as he passed me.

“Hi, how are you?” he whispered without breaking stride.

I turned to watch him walk over to a green bench in the city square and climb up on it. He cupped his mouth with his massive hands.

“Hey, everyone, listen up. I’m holding a healing crusade in Jesus’ name this morning. So, if you need a miraculous healing, come on over here,” he shouted.

People stopped what they were doing and looked at him. They had to be wondering who he thought he was, an Oral Roberts or some other evangelist like that. But to my surprise, the crowd moved toward him as if he were a Pied Piper.

An eighty-year old lady scooted her walker to the front of the group. She looked up at the stranger.

“Okay, sonny, let’s see you do your stuff,” she said with arched eyebrows.

A slight smile etched his chiseled face. He jumped down, and in one continuous motion, he grabbed the walker and flung it onto the lawn, saying, “In Jesus’ name, be healed. Now dance for Him.”

The crowd watched as she teetered there, her weak legs straining to hold her up. A man reached to grab her, but the black man slapped the Good Samaritan’s hands away.

“Don’t help her,” he said. “Let the Lord finish His work in her.”

A few in the crowd booed the stranger, but he paid no attention to them. He knew what he was doing.

Then, it happened.

A big smile lit up the little woman’s face. She straightened up, kicked one leg in the air, and then the other. She followed with a scissors kick, using both legs at once. Tears streamed down her face as she lifted up her arms and danced on the sidewalk, praising Jesus for her miracle.

People ran to form a line in the street. Some were young. Some were old. There were cripples, amputees, cancer sufferers, heart victims, mentally ill, and numerous others who were afflicted with one malady or another. They waited patiently for the stranger to pray for them.

The stranger moved toward the first person in line, but an arm reached out and grabbed his shoulder. The black man stopped and turned around, looking into the face of a middle-aged man with blond hair, wearing a black suit.

“Yes, may I help you?” asked the stranger.

“I’m Reverend Adam Johnson, head of Farmer City’s ministerial board,” said the man in a deep voice. “We don’t believe you should hold a healing crusade just yet. No one knows who you are accountable to. Allow us to check out your credentials. If everything turns out okay, you can hold healing meetings in one of our churches next week.”

The smile on the black man’s face dipped downward.

“Who were you referring to when you said ‘we’?”

Reverend Johnson pointed toward six men dressed in similar suits, standing under the oak tree behind the bench.

“Those are the other pastors on the board. Like most shepherds, we just want to protect our flocks from unknown strangers.”

The African-American placed his hands under the armpits of Reverend Johnson, picking him off the ground. He tossed him as if he were a basketball over the bench at the other pastors. The clergy reached out their arms, cushioning Johnson’s fall to the ground.

The black stranger stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists, as if he were deciding on further action against the group. Fear crept into the pastors’ eyes. They stepped back from him.

“Don’t you ever get in my way again! Jesus sent me to hold a healing crusade in Farmer City this morning and people like you are not going to stop me. Do you hear?” he proclaimed, pointing his finger at them.

They nodded in agreement at the man’s words and fled the city square.

The stranger turned around and began praying for people.

What happened next was unbelievable. It was as if Jesus Himself were holding a healing meeting in our city. Everyone received his healing. None was disappointed. When he finished, he walked away from the city square. A few tried to stop him, but he shook them off.

“Just thank Jesus and give Him the glory,” he said over his shoulder.

He slowed down and stopped a few feet from me. He eyed me up and down for a few seconds as I puffed on my cigarette. Our eyes locked, but neither of us spoke. I finally looked down at my feet.

The burning love and compassion in his eyes made me feel like I stood naked in front of him. He knew the type of man I was and yet, he still cared for me. Why? I did not know, but I wanted to find out.

With that reply and others, the son of a murdered Baptist preacher became the most visible spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Unlike Martin Luther King, Jr. who attended well-known universities, Malcolm X studied library books while serving a ten-year sentence in a Massachusetts prison. It was there he became a convert to the Nation of Islam.

The contrast between the messages proclaimed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X could not have been greater, especially for that time period. King emphasized integration, equality, nonviolence, and Christian values while Malcolm X preached black supremacy, a separation of black and white Americans, violence when needed, and Islam.

Quotes by Malcolm X:

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

“Christianity is the white man’s religion.”

“Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus.”

“The ‘long hot summer’ of 1964 in Harlem, in Rochester, and in other cities, has given an idea of what could happen… For all of those riots were kept contained within where the Negro lived. You let any of these bitter, seething ghettoes all over America receive the right igniting incident, and become really inflamed, and explode, and burst out of their boundaries into where whites live…Black social dynamite is in Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles…the black man’s anger is there, fermenting.”

“Our enemy is the white man.”

“My black brothers and sisters − no one will know who we are…until we know who we are…The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is giving us a true identity, and a true position − the first time they have ever been known to the American black man…”

Most certainly Malcolm X was a prophet of Islam whose messages shook white Americans and revealed the bitterness, anger, and frustration black Americans felt from their second-class status. At the same time, Malcolm X changed how black Americans thought of themselves.

Although I pray for the Jews and Gentiles to become the one new man as stated in Ephesians 2:15 on Tuesdays, there’s another revelation to be seen in that verse. It is a template or pattern which can be used for disagreeing groups, such as black and white Americans.

My prayer today:

Lord, I pray that You might create in Yourself one new man in place of black American believers and white american believers, thus making peace between the two races. (Based on Ephesians 2:15)

“I don’t believe the race problems between white and black Americans will be settled for years and years, maybe fifty to seventy-five years, if ever,” said a friend during a recent discussion.

“Many years ago, the Lord gave me a vision of a black river coming out of the inner cities of America. The river consisted of black apostles and prophets going to the different parts of America to help free us from the spirit of religion. I still believe in the vision,” I replied.

“Well, you’re seventy years old…”

“Yes, I may be almost twenty-five years older now than when I had the vision, but I believe in it more today than I did back then.”

My prayer today:

Lord, help us believers who have prophetic visions for America not to lose heart so that we will eventually see the goodness of the Lord in our nation. (Based on Psalm 27:13)

Dad would drive our 1955 Pontiac, Mom would ride in the shotgun seat, and my sister and I sat in the back. It did not matter where we were going because she and I would soon end up having a fight. Maybe she put her hand over the midline between her side of the seat and my side. Maybe I touched her. Whatever lit our fuses would soon be forgotten as our fight escalated.

Mom would then turn around and give us her best ‘don’t mess with your mama’ look. “Larry, why are you always causing trouble? Behave yourself.”

“Mom, she hit me last. So, I should be able to hit her one more time. It’s only fair!”

I am sure most of us can relate to this incident in one way or another, but the point is that avenging ourselves by retaliation is a natural reaction, which we learn as youngsters. Not only that, retaliation and vengeance will always escalate until one party loses or both sides quit. There are no in-between positions.

Today, I prayed:

Lord, we cry out to You to stop the racial war which is now being stirred up in America. Help us to no longer act as children, tossed to and fro by the waves of mankind and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes, and help us to speak the truth in love and to grow up in every way into who You are, the Head of the church. (Based on Ephesians 4:14 and 1 Timothy 1:1)

In the late fall of 1995, a friend and I prayed for Northern Ireland. While praying, I had a vision, in which I saw thousands of bodies of young people piled up in the streets of Belfast. All had their lives snuffed out by the continued violence between the Catholics and Protestants.

Although we prayed to stop this horrible vision from happening, I also knew I had an important prophetic word for Northern Ireland within my spirit, waiting to be given.

Through some divine appointments, I eventually typed out the prophecy and sent it to the Rev. Cecil Kerr at the Christian Renewal Centre in Belfast. He later phoned and said the Centre’s prayer group had been waiting for weeks for just such a prophecy. They immediately began praying it into manifestation.

The problems in Northern Ireland began almost 400 years earlier in 1610. King James I confiscated a million acres of land from native Irish and gave it to Scottish/English Protestants for the Ulster Plantation. This, of course, enraged the Irish, fueling numerous conflicts, wars, and rebellions between the Irish Catholics and Scottish/English Protestants over the following centuries resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

In 1995, the most recent turmoil in Northern Ireland had been going on since the late 1960’s. It became known as The Troubles. On the one side were the Nationalists (native Irish Catholics) while the opposite side consisted of the Unionists (Northern Ireland Protestants). Also, there were the Official Republican Army, its more radical spinoff − the Provisional Republican Army, the even more radical Real IRA, British Army, and countless other radical groups. The violence occurred almost daily and even spilt over into England, Scotland, Ireland, and Europe with numerous bombings taking place.

More than 3,500 people were killed in The Troubles and another 30-40,000 people were injured.

Looking back on the prophecy I wrote for Northern Ireland, it did not mention who was right or wrong in the long struggle. Instead, it pointed out Satan’s plan to kill thousands of young people through a spirit of death and God’s strategy to defuse Satan’s plan.

The Belfast Peace Agreement was reached on Good Friday, 1998, ending The Troubles. Although there has been sporadic violence since then, the agreement remains in affect.

What was God’s strategy? And could it stop racial violence, and even race wars, in America?